T-BONE WALKER How His Guitar Gave Birth To Electric Blues

SUAVE, STYLISH AND A CONSUMMATE SHOWMAN, T-BONE WALKER KICKED OFF THE ROCK 'N' ROLL ERA WITH HIS ICONIC 1949 GIBSON ES-5N.

- JAMES DICKSON

WITH AN IMPORTANT NEW BOOK CHARTING HIS EPOCHAL PLACE IN MUSIC HISTORY, WE GET UP CLOSE WITH T-BONE'S LEGENDARY GUITAR AND EXPLORE HOW (AND WHY) BLUES WENT ELECTRIC...

THE BIRTH OF ELECTRIC BLUES

PERFECT STORM

As the author of the newly released Electric Blues! T-Bone Walker & The Guitar That Started It All, Tony Bacon joins us to spotlight T-Bone's personal contribution to the creation of this genre-changing style

As is often the way, my latest book began with a guitar. It's a gorgeous '49 Gibson ES-5N, the one that T-Bone Walker played longer than any other guitar in his career. It's not hard to see why he loved it so much – and not hard to understand why he was so distraught when it went missing during a tour of France in the late 60s.

As the years dragged on, T-Bone's Gibson was thought lost forever. A few years ago, however, it surfaced at an auction in France. Its new owner, Patrick Racz, asked me if I'd be interested in writing a book about the guitar and about T-Bone. I didn't take long to answer. And so began a long and happy journey into the world of T-Bone Walker, with plenty of surprises and revelations along the way – and the ultimate realisation that T-Bone was one of the greatest and most influential blues musicians who ever lived.

ELECTRIC BLUES!
T-Bone's glorious Gibson ES-5N wasn't his first electric. That honour goes to an ES-250 that he acquired, probably in New York City, around 1940. Gibson had started to ship this new model a year earlier, and it was the company's first professional electric archtop Spanish guitar, marking a distinct upgrade from the groundbreaking ES-150. Only around 90 were built.